By way of Kickstarter, I came across this T-shirt making campaign started by NPR and This American Life. With a modest goal of $50,000, it wound up raising nearly $600,000.
The group partnered with my good friends over at Jockey to make the documentary a reality. Basically, they must be following one of Jockey’s supply chains.
Planet Money T-Shirt
Here’s a blurb about the project to put it into context:
Almost every single t-shirt out there — from the cheesiest vacation tank top to the fanciest boutique designer tee — is the result of a complicated global odyssey.
We will take you on that odyssey and document the route our t-shirt took to your back. We’ll meet the people who grow the cotton, spin the yarn, and cut and sew the fabric.
We’ll ride on the cargo ships that bring our t-shirt from factories in Bangladesh and Colombia to ports in the US. And we’ll examine the crazy tangle of international regulations which govern the t-shirt trade the whole way.
ADVERTISEMENT Hold on, I’m not done.
Our t-shirt will have a cool little code on it that you can scan with your smartphone. It’ll bring you to an interactive page where you can see photos of the people who made your shirt and follow its journey around the globe.
Planet Money T-Shirt: Documenting the Journey
The effort has a small handful of reporters traversing the globe following the t-shirt making process, and they are documenting their journey via their tumblr blog.
Some of the folks started off in Indonesia to following the yarn-spinning process, and another group started in Bangladesh.
It’ll be pretty interesting to follow them throughout the entire process.
Now, it’s time to sit back and learn how your t-shirt (undershirt) is really made.
